Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Human, as the social creature use language for communication. To communicate means to transfer ideas from one person to the others. Language is a wonderfully rich vehicle for communication. According to Yule, the function of language are as interactional function, which is commonly used to convey the expressions like greetings, regrets, fear, etc., and transactional function, language as the linguistic competence that is used to share knowledge, ability, and information. 1 It is used to convey wishes and commands, to tell truths and lies, to influence our hearer, to vent our emotion, and to formulate ideas which could probably never arise if we had no language. Language is a style of speaking and a social phenomenon that becomes the most important of all the forms of human communication. Using language, there are variations which exist in the society. Today, in sociolinguistics, variation is central. 2 The variations commonly occur based on the uses, the users, the participant, and the situation. As explained by Holmes, “Language varies according to its uses as well as its users, according to where it used and to whom, as well as according to who is using it.” 3 1 George Yule, The Study of Language Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p.5. 2 Margareth Maclagan, “Regional and Social Variation”, Clinical Sociolinguistics, ed. Martin J. Ball USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, p.15. 3 Janet Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics New York: Longman, 1992, p. 245. It’s also explained by Halliday, et all. As quote by Maclagan, that language variation is divided into two categories: variation according to the user and according to use. Variation according to the users contains aspects of language which reveals the speaker’s place of origin, gender, age, social class, ethnicity, education. Meanwhile, language variation according to use is related to the changing of speech situation or event. 4 One of the interesting variations for discuss is about language and ethnicity. There are some varieties of English which associated with ethnic group, such as Navajo English, Appalachian English, Puerto Rican English, and African American English or African American Vernacular English. However, African American Vernacular English is the most interesting subject for linguists for a number of years. 5 African American Vernacular English AAVE encompasses several labels including Ebonics, Black English, African American English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular and Black Vernacular English, all of which describe the English that is primarily, but not exclusively, associated with the speech of African Americans. 6 Many linguists use the label “African American English” AAE, but the addition of the term ‘Vernacular’ meaning “common everyday language” is gaining favor, since the word distinguishes it from the formal 4 Margareth Maclagan 2005, loc. cit. 5 Thomas W. Stewart and Nathan Vaillette, Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language Linguistics Columbus: The Ohio University Press, 2001, p. 318. 6 Labov, W. Cohen, P., Robbins, C., Lewis, J. A Study of Non-Standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City, volume 2 Philadelphia: US Regional Survey, 1968. English spoken by many African Americans. 7 According to Green, African American English is a system with specific rules for combining sounds to form words to form phrases and sentences. 8 It has a number of features which is different with Standard American English. This linguistics differences act as a symbol of ethnicity. It expresses the sense of cultural distinctiveness of many African Americans. This dialect usually used in the Northern cities of the United States. 9 The mental dictionary of AAE speakers includes the information needed to use words and expressions grammatically: their pronunciation, part of speech, possible positions in a sentence, and meaning. The vocabulary of AAE can be viewed in three parts: words and phrases used by speakers in a range of age groups that cross generation boundaries; special verbal markers; and slang. 10 Furthermore, the characteristics of AAVE include phonological, grammatical, and semantic features. Phonological features of AAVE refer to the AAVE pronunciation system which is restriction on the occurrence of combination of consonant sounds, especially at the end of words. 11 For instance, transposed sk and sp. Likes aks in ‘ask’, or stopping of word-initial voiced th, likes dese for ‘these’. In phonological features of AAVE there is also 7 Redd, T. Webb, K. A Teachers Introduction to African American English: What a Writing Teacher Should Know Washington D.C.: National Council of Teachers of English, 2005, p.17. 8Lisa Green, “African American English”, Language in the USA, eds. Edward Finegan and John R. Rickford United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 76. 9 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Second Edition New York :Longman, 2001, p.177 10 Lisa Green 2004,op cit, p.79. 11 Ibid, p. 85. monophtongization. It means by which diphthongs get reduced to monophtong, for instance, now is pronounced [na], sad is sounded [sad], etc. 12 Some grammatical features of AAVE, which involve morphologic and syntactic features, can be seen in the following examples: Sometimes my ears be itching. Habitual be for intermittent activity, She nice. Absence of copula for contracted form, She walk_ ‘she walks’ present tense, third person –s absence, or using double negation likes Didn’t nobody like it ‘No body liked it’. One of the most distinctive features of AAVE is the complete absence of the copula verb be in some social and linguistics context. Holmes gives the example of African American speakers’ speech. They usually omit the verb be, like in the sentence: She very nice American Standard English: She’s very nice, He a teacher, that my book, etc. 13 According to Green, many characteristic features of AAE are from the part of the linguistic system that put together to form sentence. She gives an example of AAE speakers’ sentence: Didn’t nobody ask me do I be late for class. From this sentence, we can analyze that it has three AAE features: inversionmultiple negation; embedded yesno question; and habitual be. Moreover, semantic features of AAVE, refer to words which have two levels of meaning, “one black; one white”, like “He is a bad dude.” It has negative meaning: “a person of undesirable character”, or positive meaning: “a person of highly desirable character.” 12 Thomas W. Stewart and Nathan Vaillette 2001, op.cit. p. 322. 13 Holmes 2001 op cit, p.177. Sentence patterns can be used as markers of black images in film. In the 1994 film Flesh used the verbal marker be that indicates habitual recurrences. In that film, African American characters of all age groups use features associated with AAE. 14 Now, there are some American movie which the characters use AAVE. One of them is in Precious movie. Precious, an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire, is a 2009 American drama film directed by Lee Daniels. Clareece Precious Jones, the main character, is an overweight, illiterate African- American teen in Harlem. Just as shes about to give birth to her second child, Jones is accepted into an alternative school where a teacher helps her find a new path in her life. Precious has received dozens of nominations in award categories ranging from the performance of the cast to the direction to the cinematography to the adaptation of the book into the screenplay to the film itself including six Academy Award nominations. 15 Black Americans usually use their language, which is different from Standard American English SAE. It’s known as African American Vernacular English AAVE. It will be interesting to study the characteristics of AAVE, especially in the grammatical features, because the actors used more grammatical features of AAVE than the other features of AAVE in this movie. For example, in one of her dialogs she said, “This the alternative?” its sentence can be analyzed as having grammatical feature of AAVE: zero copula. In 14 Lisa Green 2004, op cit, p.88-89. 15 http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiprecious. Access on June 24, 2010. American Standard English, it should be ‘Is this the alternative?’ Besides, in this sentence: “He ain’t got no voice.” We can identify it by checking the grammatical characteristics of AAVE. This sentence can be analyzed as having AAVE feature: double negation. It should be ‘He didn’t get any voice’. We can input the sentences into the table to compare the grammatical characteristics of AAVE with Standard English. AAVE sentences General Description Standard American English This the alternative The copula be is dropped zero copula. Is this the alternative? He ain’t got no voice. Use of ain’t as a general negative indicator and Double negation. He didn’t get any voice. Accordingly, in this research, the writer is interested in studying grammatical features of AAVE which are used in Precious movie.

B. Focus of the Research